


At the Time

by Jemisard



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Sentinels & Guides, Episode Related, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-04
Updated: 2013-11-04
Packaged: 2017-12-31 11:30:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1031187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jemisard/pseuds/Jemisard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Lewis comes to realise he's taken on another Sentinel and that he realises this long after he probably should've. </p>
<p>Prequel to others in this Sentinel!Lewis world frame.</p>
            </blockquote>





	At the Time

At the time, Lewis had had no idea what had actually happened.

They were wrapping the Griffon case. It was the first time they'd worked together and while there had been tensions, they had done a damn fine job between the two of them.

For Lewis, three years out from Val's death and six years after losing his Sentinel, it had been a strange return to something near normal, to have a partner who was there and watching him, even just cop to cop.

Then Innocent had turned up and said that he had first refusal on Hathaway. The young man hadn't been with them at the time, busy tying up matters at the crime scene and it had probably been best because Lewis probably would've turned to him and asked "Good God man, why?"

But he hadn't been, so Lewis hadn't and instead he'd just agreed to take on Sergeant Hathaway. He was smart and just insubordinate enough to be interesting and he deserved better than Knox and his drink driving problems.

That was at the time.

As a second-hand Guide, Lewis had never expected to be called back into work with a Sentinel. Too many of the newly appraised Sentinels got silly romantic notions about what it meant to be part of a partnership like that. Lewis had no time for them, no desire to try and correct them and was quite grateful that he was too old, too experienced and no where near good looking enough to be considered a catch to any promising Sentinels joining the Service.

It was why he was grateful for James. He went from Hathaway to James fairly quickly, because they were too friendly for 'Hathaway' all the time and he could see the twitch in his Sergeant's eye the few times he tried calling him 'Jim' instead.

Not just see but feel. He was a Guide without a Sentinel, but the skills were still there, the awareness of a twinge when someone close to him is annoyed. Val had been skilled at repressing her annoyance until she exploded; he had honed his ability to pick it on her, since Morse had _never_ hesitated let him know the second he was unhappy about something.

And that was something else he liked about James. James wasn't loud. James was quiet and controlled and really, Lewis should've picked it from the way that such a tightly controlled young man was comfortable touching him, just his arm or shoulder when he was talking, when they were in public.

And he could admit, he probably should've picked it up before that moment. Especially when James leaned into him in the face of the Headmaster's mistake that they were a couple. Fact was, they were behaving like a couple, like a matched pair and Lewis had thought he was projecting his old relationships onto this one.

Then Hugh Mallory had punched him, he had hit his head on some fossil and when he managed to clear his sight, James Hathaway–his quiet Sergeant–was hanging the suspect out a window, physically _growling_ at the man while the suspect's daughters huddled in the safety of the far corner.

"James."

Hathaway's head twitched, despite the fact Lewis had barely whispered.

Mallory whimpered and James' focus turned back to the suspect, face twisting into an ugly snarl.

"James. Help _me_." It was a low blow.

For a long moment, James stayed still, staring at Mallory, the man shaking and off balance and desperate to live where moments before he had been desperate to die and take his children with him.

James hauled Mallory up and threw him aside. Uniformed police were running along the hall, even Lewis could hear them but James came to him instead, taking his hand and helping him up gently.

For a Guide, Lewis could admit he was a bloody slow man sometimes.

"You're a Sentinel."

James glanced at him, eyebrow raised in a clear suggestion that Lewis was either an idiot or had head trauma.

"I'm your Guide."

"Well done, sir." He was helped to sit on the very dinosaur fossil that had left the dent in his skull in the first place. "Would you like to count to ten now, or tell me the first three letters of the Alphabet?"

Lewis was under investigation for traumatising a minor. James had just attacked a suspect and hung him out a window and threatened to drop him. In front of a gathered crowd of the public. If they were lucky, they'd be up on official reprimand and an investigation.

Lewis laughed anyway.


End file.
